AUSTRIA: No apparent breakthrough was made at 11th-hour talks between the UN nuclear watchdog and Iran yesterday, 48 hours before the UN Security Council receives a report on Tehran's atomic programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declined to comment. Iran's IAEA envoy, Aliasghar Soltanieh, said: "It was a useful exchange of views on how to speed up the resolution of outstanding issues." He declined to say if progress was made.
Diplomats accredited to the IAEA said Iranian officials probably showed up too late for any answers they provided to decisively alter the IAEA report to the security council tomorrow.
The talks at the IAEA's Vienna headquarters took place two weeks after agency head Mohamed ElBaradei was rebuffed in Tehran over his requests that Iran "pause" its uranium enrichment drive and address world doubts about its nuclear intentions. Western powers suspect Iran has secret plans to build an atomic bomb, while Tehran says its nuclear programme is for power generation.
But the western powers are deadlocked with Russia and China in the security council over whether and how fast to pursue sanctions on Iran.
A war of words between Iran and the West has occurred in the countdown to Mr ElBaradei's report, widely expected to judge Iran to have ignored a 30-day deadline set by the security council on March 29th to suspend enrichment-related work.
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's atomic energy programme, his deputy Mohammad Saeedi and Mr Soltanieh met Mr ElBaradei and his nuclear safeguards deputy, Olli Heinonen, for 90 minutes.
Iran has halted IAEA short-notice inspections since February and refused to answer questions about suspected undeclared nuclear work with possible military dimensions.
"There has been growing frustration in the agency about Tehran's behaviour," said one western diplomat close to the IAEA. Diplomats said Mr ElBaradei had agreed to meet Mr Aghazadeh to made headway on questions about Iran's nuclear activities still outstanding after three years of IAEA probing.
"But whatever he tells us at this late stage, there would be no time for inspectors to check and verify it before the report comes out," one diplomat said.
Asked whether this could change the report, the diplomat said: "There seems no time for that now." Mr ElBaradei has said that, overall, Iran has not proven it does not harbour a military nuclear programme at secret locations. Tehran's halt to "snap" IAEA inspections has magnified such concerns.